Who Are Those Guys?

 

    I had my DNA tested by Ancestry.com. I then uploaded my results to 3 other programs and regularly check those sites to see how many new relatives I have. One site, Family Tree DNA says I have 29,203 matches. Could they really all be cousins? Doubtful because of endogamy which will be explained later in the post. My Heritage, another service claims I have 21,244. Gedmatch Genesis shuts off their analysis at 3000 matches. Ancestry doesn’t give me the number of total matches but it has the largest database and I would estimate that it shows me to have well over 35,000 matches. 

    Each service also offers different services and search options. You can search by surname, names of towns, and by how many cMs you share. You can compare your DNA segments on each chromosome to those of somebody else to see what segments you actually share. You can also check to see what matches you have in common with another person. There is enough data out there to make your head spin. Below is a chart showing my top matches in each service 

ANCESTRY                  FTDNA                 MY HERITAGE                 GEDMATCH GENESIS 

Marian                             Marian                 Marian                                 Marian 

Ruth                                 Ruth                     Ruth                                     Ruth 

Todd Seriff                       Paul Ringold        Malcolm Gudis                   Paul 

Essdaughter                     Chanon Berg        Evgeni Khaet                      Nikki 

Jeff Greenberg                 Nigel Israel          Thomas Grunstein               CEZG 

Dennig19                         Sonia Ehrlich        Corey Chernosky               Marjorie Kaye 

Edith Wax                        Sharon Lambie     RC Wein                             Larisa Semianova 

Jodihicken87                    David Edelman     Natalie Charach                 Simon Klionsky 

Marvin Levin                    Rina Bunin            Irving Roth                       Cherrie 16

 Amysorkinkurland          Carol Orwitz           Lionel Habas                    R Kisner 

AC Mallor                        Sasha Lauren          Beth Edelman                   Mike 

Lori Marcus                     Carolyn Arndt         Mark Strauss                     Tomci 

Sam Giles                         Shereen Silver        Silvia Gugenheim             Susan Minker 

Janet Pettis                       Mark Strauss           David Edelman                 Jacalyn Adams 

J.P.                                    Robert Goodman     Ann Spoont                      David Kaminsky 

Sarahblucy                        Nancy Prager          Yulia Eskin                       Forgd 

Gloria Levin                     Chanoch Lebovic    Alyson 23                         Christine Robbins 

MJ Denes                         David Kaplan           Sharon Greenfield            V Shukina 

Susan Kreisman               Christine Robbins     Lloyd                               S Lauren 

Alon Zakon                       Alice Nussbaum       Arthur Malin                   Pumpkin 1

 

     Marian is my sister and Ruth is my Aunt. Anybody else in bold type is a confirmed relative. Names in italics denote those people with whom I’ve communicated with to try to establish a connection. There are a couple of duplicates on these lists because many people did what I did and uploaded to more than one service. Checking shared matches is useful because it can pinpoint which branch of your family this person is connected with. If I have a common match with both Marian and Ruth then I know that person is from my father’s side of the family. If the common match is only Marian then it is more than likely from my mother’s side. This isn’t bulletproof. My 12th highest match on Ancestry is Lori Marcus. My shared matches with her do not include Marian or Ruth. They do include Essdaughter from my maternal grandmother’s family, Jeff Greenberg from my paternal grandfather’s family, and Dennig19 from my paternal grandmother’s family. Endogamy prevails! 

    Endogamy is defined as marriage within a specific tribe or similar social unit. Eastern European Jews lived in small villages and primarily married within their religion. This shrank the gene pool for this particular population group and so the same genes showed up more often within the people of that community. It also was not unusual for cousins to marry each other. There are several examples within my own family tree of first cousins, first cousins once removed, and second cousins tying the knot. This explains the large number of DNA matches I have in all of these services. Somebody in my genealogy club has family from West Virginia and she says that endogamy is prevalent in that population as well. 

    Another function that I have had fun with is to search for a town name that appears in another person’s tree. I searched for Traby, Belarus (my paternal grandfather’s home town) and got 15 matches that are considered 4th cousin or closer. 6 of them have the surname of Levine or Levin. I have contacted several of them to establish where the connection might be. We have theories that are rife with speculation but have yet to pin down any documental evidence. A little disappointing but I have made some nice friends along the journey 

    There are over 1600 names on my family tree which includes both my family and my wife’s family. Very few of them have had their DNA tested. I guess I’ll keep looking over all of the lists of DNA matches and continue to ask “Who are those guys?” 

    By the way, that line is from one of my favorite movies. If you know what it is, leave a comment with the name of the movie.

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 1, 2021 at 5:59 PM

    I did an autosomal test on FTDNA 10 years ago and three of my top four matches show as Ruth Levine, Sid's Sister, and Paul Ringold. The last time I checked, a few months ago, you were not
    listed, Sid.
    Judy Baston

    ReplyDelete

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